


A Burning Bush

by toujours_nigel



Category: Kings
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel





	A Burning Bush

Once, years and decades ago, when Silas had been a simple soldier, his wolf’s coat had begun to change colour. They had been bonded some years already, and Ahimaaz’s coat had settled into the dun of the desert wolf for months; he’d been darker as a pup, but not by much. But then, within the space of two days he’d become a ruddy gold, like the sun rising above Hebron. And on the evening of the third day, they had decided to overthrow Abaddon. The wolf turning his coat had been their sign for change. Every child in Gilboa knew the story: it was in their text-books, it was in cartoons on the TV, the golden wolf was on the black flag of Gilboa. And, of course, the King told the story every chance he got. Someone had uploaded a video to YouTube that made it into a rap, and it had got thousands of likes within the first week, and a hundred comments within a month. Nobody had even yanked it, which just went to show how frustrated the Palace staff must be with it: stood to reason, they must have heard it exponentially more times than the rest of the country, and G*D knew Gilboa had heard it plenty of times.

David himself has heard it fifteen times: seven Before Goliath and eight since, in the last couple of months. Not all from Silas, of course. He doesn’t... well, he doesn’t really see the King _that_ often, and Ithream stiffens every time he has to walk into a room with Ahimaaz, which makes even the possibility of conversation vanish. Ahimaaz, for his part, has only just begun to ignore him: David’s had a tense few encounters in the first few weeks when he’s had to converse with the King while his body throbs in the echo of Ithream’s pain; he’s undressed expecting his shirt to be stained with blood, plunged his hands into his wolf-brother’s fur expecting his hands to come away stained. But Ahimaaz never breaks the skin, just holds Ithream suspended between his teeth so that every breath is voluntary pain. And then he draws back and licks his nose. And Silas smiles through it all, and offers to cook David eggs.

Nobody seems to notice, and David tries to believe that it has nothing to do with how the King thinks of him. It’s old-fashioned to think that man and wolf are exactly alike: that’s been disproved as far back as the last century and David isn’t quite religious enough to hold to such things. But he’s been in war and he’s seen how seamlessly wolf and wolf-brother can work together, how the pack attacks like a single warrior. He’s seen Michelle in the council meetings, and how Ahinoam stands before the door daring anyone to leave the chamber. So it isn’t, as he had been afraid, that this is simply how things work in Shiloh, or that he’s hopelessly backward.

In fact, not too many of his fears about Shiloh have been realised: he gets on well, or well enough, with almost everyone. It helps to have Ithream loping ahead of him like an oversized puppy; his mother used to be sure he’d brought home a dog by mistake, because no wolf she’d ever seen had been so friendly. She used to say it with more than half an eye on David, who’s had a tendency, when younger, to go missing for days because he’d taken it upon himself to help their neighbours with the harvest, or because he’d gone hiking and found a hawk with a broken wing and stayed to tend to it. He’d like to say that he’s grown out of it, but is beginning to suspect that was probably just the army. Last Saturday Ithream and he wandered down to the kitchens and had to be chased out by irritable chefs bearing meat-cleavers. It’s not Ithream’s fault, really; he’s still growing into his paws and to have an entire industrial freezer of meat in front of his eyes would probably test even Ahimaaz’s restraint. He’s not too sure about the queen’s wolf—from what little he’s seen of her, Rizpah seems the sort that likes her dinner lightly grilled and served with a dash of lemon, or something else equally exotic and delicious—but he’s seen Ahinoam nip at people at parties without being reprimanded, and nobody to his knowledge has ever said anything whatsoever to Merab, and she could hardly be wilder if she were unbonded.

But she’s an Army wolf, same as his—it had made the news three years ago, when the prince finally found his wolf, and then a further wave of speculation when information leaked that Prince Jack had bonded himself to a sister. Palace sources had said that Merab was a konigenwolf, and that it was a portent for the prince’s eventual reign. David doesn’t know about that: there haven’t been konigenwolves for hundreds of years, and generally people think that they’re a bit of Norse mythology, really. And—he feels positively primeaval for thinking this, but—Merab’s a beautiful girl, nearly as big as Ahimaaz and bigger than both Rizpah and Ahinoam, and it’s true that she and Jack make a lovely pair, but. Well, Merab come running every time he and Ithream are within range, and the wolves play while Jack slouches in the doorway or against a convenient wall and looks put-upon and resigned. Yesterday Ithream had even managed to pin her for a full minute, and she’s at least as big as him. It’s not really how he thinks a mythical leader of wolves, alpha amongst alphas, is supposed to behave. Unless of course she’s expected to charm them all into following her, because nobody, man or wolf, has ever even looked reproachfully at her in the time David’s been around, and the only reason Ithream even knows where the kitchens are is that they’d come across Merab slouching off with a duck dangling from her mouth. It’s hard to believe she’s Jack’s sister, sometimes—not in the delinquencies, what with all the photos and articles about the prince out clubbing, but in their difference of temperament. Even on the day of Goliath, she’d come whimpering to his hand the moment he cut her free, even before rushing to check on her brother. He hadn’t done it for the gratitude, but Jack seems to resent him for the rescue. It’s like Ahimaaz and Silas; maybe kings grow distant from their wolves till there’s nothing tying them together, maybe they give up the man entirely.

Every Gilboan knows the story, the king’s wolf changing colour till he became molten gold, unnatural and strange amongst wolves, a sign of the grace of G*D, and Reverend Samuels and Silas knew that it was time to begin. There are conspiracy theories that say it wasn’t Silas’ old wolf at all, but something new that had come in the night to seek out a king. But that's rubbish, really, because wolves do sometimes get lighter as they grow, if not that dramatically; even Ithream has some blond hairs mixed in with his dark pelt.


End file.
